Lots of smartphones, tablets and other devices these days use an ultra-premium build quality as a selling point. All-metal frames, edge-to-edge screens and unibody construction aren’t hard to find these days. Even phones built from plastic, long thought of as a material that’s not terribly premium, have been stepping up their build quality game. Quality has been cheaper, as well, with older phones like the Nexus 6 dropping in price and newer phones with high quality builds, like the Xiaomi Mi5, seeing lower prices than ever. If you’d like to go with a truly premium material for a price that’s far above the average flagship, the option has been there, for quite some time and with quite a few different phones, to get a third party to make a custom outer casing for your phone that’s made of gold, silver or platinum. The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are the two latest phones to get this treatment.
Plating provider Truly Exquisite, who have already sold the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6S in luxurious materials, are planning to put some new duds on the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. The date for orders to be fulfilled was “very soon after” the phones’ official releases on March 11. Customers can get either phone coated in 24 karat gold, platinum or 18 karat rose gold. Pricing starts at €1,700, or roughly $1,850 USD. This ultimate status symbol, as shown in the picture, will feature gold plating along all the parts of the phone that aren’t glass. At this time, there was no announcement of an option that covers the front as well, since this would require redesigning and refitting the units, rather than just plating existing units from Samsung.
Starting out at roughly three times the price of the base unit, this option is actually relatively inexpensive, as far as these sorts of things go. Considering the fact that 24 karat gold goes for about $1,323 USD per ounce as of this writing and gold-plating a phone likely requires at least half an ounce, the profit margin here amounts to roughly $500. Hit up the source link to get your gold on, Samsung lovers.